The midwife is accused of witchcraft when a child is found murdered with a sigil drawn on his shoulderblade. The town executioner knows the accusation is baseless superstition, and joins forces with the young physician sweet on his daughter to find who the true culprit is before he is forced to torture and kill an innocent woman.

Reserved for mrsjones (tag). media mail, 07/31/21

Received in the mail today. Can't wait to read it!

This book started out strong. I was gripped by the scenes of the executions and witch hunt. I'm a sucker for a witch trials story.
But toward the middle of the book, some of the details described stopped me; did Germans have carpeted stairs in 1659??
And then, when the devil and the Burghers became twisted up in some sort of nefarious plot and the hangman started to become a hero, it all got to be too contrived to me. I read the author bio and saw that he based his story on the fact that he's a descendant of the Kuisl executioner's family and I felt like he was living out a hero fantasy through Jakob's character.

And my last criticism: the hangman's daughter wasn't really the key figure in this, so I'm not sure why it is titled as it is.

Thanks for the tag with this wishlist book. A bit disappointed you didn't exactly enjoy it.

And to answer the question about the carpeted stairs: probably not, per this article -
https://www.thevictorianemporium.com/publications/history/article/flooring_and_carpets